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Hungry Ghost Diner Satiates

The Hungry Ghost Diner by Kelly Ann Ellis is a wide-ranging exploration of one woman’s mind, life, and experiences in poetic form. Ellis mines the common elements of small-town life while combining them with snippets of ancient mythology and contemporary religion. References to Leda, Zeus, and Pandora lie next to an ode to Amy Winehouse and a memory of the speaker proselytizing as a Jehovah’s Witness. She describes relationships both familial and romantic from the perspective of someone who has moved past the flirtations and fixations of youth and into the tempered expectations and realities of middle age. The poetry in this book leads the reader to consider their own experiences and how they are reflective of, or contrast with, those of the author. This volume of poetry is focused on the interpretation and exploration of the human experience.

While Ellis’s book does not focus on or even significantly discuss “mature topics,” I would not consider it kid-friendly. Its subject matter is the midlife experience and thus will not likely resonate with younger people. However, if they are interested in the malaise that can strike one in the midst of the day-to-day, often redundant, and common life that people generally don’t commemorate in literature or poetry, they will find this book provides insight about that state of being. The book does what poetry is supposed to do. It causes the reader to stop, ponder, and weigh the intentions of the author while debating if they agree or have had similar experiences of their own. In addition, this collection does elicit a sense of Texas through direct references to places like the Trinity River and Kemah as well as the less specific feeling of being in a small, dusty, isolated town. Ellis’s work allows the reader to explore these concepts and places from the comfort of their own reading nook.